The Landscape Ecology Insider knows that the world of historical ecology is a pretty small world, which makes colleagues all the more valuable. A stand out on the opposite coast is the Historical Ecology Program of the San Francisco Estuary Institute. SFEI’s program has been working for more than a decade to understand the original distribution of tidal wetlands, riparian habitat, and oak woodlands around San Francisco; recently they have been branching out to Southern California and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Their work is painstaking and a great model for Welikia, as they mostly data sources of a similar vintage (late 18th through early 20th century maps and accounts) and then have an intensive process for compiling, documenting and synthesizing geographic features from diverse sources.

That’s what we have to do too. Recently the Welikia Project has been putting a lot of effort into project management, so we can ride herd on the amazing amounts of information available about the New York City landscape. We think we are going to use a combination of Project Pier, Zotero bibliographic software, and an on-line accessible, MySQL database built with Datagrid for PHP. But more to come on that in the future. Any suggestions you have for freeware or low-cost project management solutions can be sent to support@welikia.org.

For now, the Insider encourages you to check out SFEI’s exquisite work and imagine California with a few less cars and a lot more trees….

]]>https://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/san-franciscos-historical-ecology/feed/0In case you were wondering… WAY-lee-ki-ahttps://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/in-case-you-were-wondering-way-lee-ki-a/
https://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/in-case-you-were-wondering-way-lee-ki-a/#commentsFri, 01 Oct 2010 20:14:44 +0000http://welikia.org/?p=2002Hear a real Lenape speaker say “my good home” through the Lenape Talking Dictionary (Welikia link),the official online talking dictionary for the Delaware Tribe’s native language. The Lenape lived in the New York City region at the time of European discovery 400 years ago and now live today mainly in Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Canada, though Lenape people live in the New York City region. Our project name, Welikia, means “my good home” in Lenape. They might have said it of their home, and we feel the same about the boroughs of New York City today. Here’s to Welikia Bronx! Welikia Queens! Welikia Brooklyn! Welikia Staten Island!

The Landscape Ecology Insider will appreciate that one of the challenges of Welikia is so many maps!

When we worked on the Mannahatta Project, we didn’t really appreciate how we much we were blessed with having essentially only one map to work with – the British Headquarters Map. The British Headquarters Map, circa 1782-1783, told us 90% of what we needed to know about Mannahatta’s streams, hills, shorelines, etc. The remaining 10% of changes focused mainly in lower Manhattan, the most modified part of the island in the late 18th century, but of course also the area had been mapped over and over again since the Dutch in the 1620s.

For the outer boroughs, we have the advantage of using maps from later in time, but the disadvantage of not having just one map. We have so many maps and each map has to be considered in the context of who made it, how they made it, for whom they made it, when they made, and the scale over which they made it. Here at the beginning of the project, we are in the process of systematically reviewing maps from many of the fine archives, libraries and museums in the New York City region and afar, including of course the New York Public Library, the New-York Historical Society, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Bronx County Historical Society, the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, the Queens Historical Society, the Library of Congress, the Clements Library at the University of Michigan, the British Library, the National Archives (at Kew), so forth and so on.

]]>https://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/so-many-maps/feed/0So how do you say “Welikia” anyway?https://welikia.org/news/so-how-do-you-say-welikia-anyway/
https://welikia.org/news/so-how-do-you-say-welikia-anyway/#commentsFri, 01 Oct 2010 19:04:16 +0000http://welikia.org/?p=1981Hear a real Lenape speaker say “my good home” with the Lenape Talking Dictionary the official online talking dictionary for the Delaware Tribe’s native language. The Lenape lived in the New York City region at the time of European discovery 400 years ago and now live today mainly in Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Canada, though Lenape (Delaware) people live in the New York City region today too. Our project name, Welikia, means “my good home” in Lenape. They might have said it of their home, and we feel the same about the boroughs of New York City today.
]]>https://welikia.org/news/so-how-do-you-say-welikia-anyway/feed/0Of Storms and Treeshttps://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/of-storms-and-trees/
https://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/of-storms-and-trees/#commentsFri, 24 Sep 2010 02:32:03 +0000http://welikia.org/?p=1949

The great storm of 2010 – two tornadoes and a microburst – that swept across Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens last week got the Landscape Ecology Insider thinking about trees falling down.

Four hundred years ago, around Welikia fierce thunderstorms that knocked over trees would have been regrettable but not catastrophic, because trees were diverse and abundant; in fact regular disturbance of this kind was a regenerative element in the forests, creating light gaps for herbaceous plants and young trees to finally feel the unshaded light of the sun, to have their chance to grow in the sun. In our project, part of understanding Welikia , is estimating the hillsides that would be more exposed to fierce winds and map out ecological communities accordingly.

In our modern good home, New York City, the thousands of trees lost last week, in a few moments time, will take generations to replace. Thankfully we have the MillionTreesNYC program, with its stock of talent, energy and funds to replant many of the trees that went down. The volunteers and staff of Million Trees are literally planting the forest of the future – a forest that will outlast the people that plant it and their children and their grandchildren – creating the Welikia forest that we pass down from our time to the centuries, despite the storms. It gives me pause, and then makes me want to get to work.

]]>https://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/of-storms-and-trees/feed/0The Hills and Valleys of Staten Islandhttps://welikia.org/boroughs/staten-island/the-hills-and-valleys-of-staten-island/
https://welikia.org/boroughs/staten-island/the-hills-and-valleys-of-staten-island/#commentsSun, 12 Sep 2010 01:05:28 +0000http://welikia.org/?p=1919A key part of the historical ecology which the Landscape Ecology Insider loves so much is the topography. The undulations of the Earth set up the primal ecological interactions of soil, water and light, that are themselves the ecological stage for everything else. Thus understanding the topography is an essential early piece of the Welikia Project.

For Mannahatta, working out the topography was a five year job, but for Welikia it will be easier in part because of extensive 19th century topographical surveys done when areas like Staten Island were still mostly farmland and small villages. Take for example the “Atlas of Staten Island, Richmond County, New York, from official records and surveys; compiled and drawn by F. W. Beers” and published in 1874; shown here is the overview plate from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. The good news is these maps exist. The bad news is there are at least 35 individual plates to be georeferenced!

Source: Atlases of New York city. / Atlas of Staten Island, Richmond County, New York, from official records and surveys; compiled and drawn by F. W. Beers.Source Description: [1] p., 36 col. maps. 45 cm. NYPL Location: Stephen A. Schwarzman Building / The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division NYPL Catalog Call Number: Map Div.++ (Staten Island, N.Y.) (Beers, F. W. Atlas of Staten Island) NYPL Digital ID: 1515712 NYPL Record ID: 773837
]]>https://welikia.org/boroughs/staten-island/the-hills-and-valleys-of-staten-island/feed/0The On-line Map Rectifier Revolutionhttps://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/the-on-line-map-rectifier-revolution/
https://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/the-on-line-map-rectifier-revolution/#commentsSun, 12 Sep 2010 00:42:35 +0000http://welikia.org/?p=1912A major technological advance since the time we started the Mannahatta Project is home-grown in New York City. The New York Public Library’s Map Rectifier puts the ability to georeference historical maps in the hands of the crowd. Previously restricted to high end software, the process of translating a scanned map into a modern coordinate system can now be done by anyone with access to the Internet. Moreover the super-helpful folks at the The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division at NYPL have scanned many maps from their collection, which can now be viewed, georeferenced, digtitzed and even exported to Google Earth on command. The Landscape Ecology Insider foresees an on-line map rectification revolution on the rise!

In addition to the how-to video on the NYPL site, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design has a nice introduction to the process of georeferencing here.

]]>https://welikia.org/boroughs/brooklyn/the-on-line-map-rectifier-revolution/feed/0Beyond Mannahatta – the Welikia Projecthttps://welikia.org/news/beyond-mannahatta-the-welikia-project/
https://welikia.org/news/beyond-mannahatta-the-welikia-project/#commentsSun, 12 Sep 2010 00:23:37 +0000http://welikia.org/?p=1906On September 14, 2010, the Wildlife Conservation Society launched the Welikia Project, an effort to document the historical ecology of all of New York City and compare it to the current biodiversity of the city. “Welikia” means “my good home” in Lenape, the Native American language spoken in the New York City region 400 years ago, when Henry Hudson ushered in European exploration and settlement of the area. (It’s pronounced “way-LEE-ki-a” – hear it on the Lenape-Talking Dictionary website). To learn more, explore our redesigned website. For those of you who loved Mannahatta, all the maps, educational materials and discussion boards will still be available, along with new materials reflecting Welikia for the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. You can also become a Landscape Ecology Insider by clicking on any of the outer boroughs and making a small supporting contribution!
]]>https://welikia.org/news/beyond-mannahatta-the-welikia-project/feed/0Welcome to the Landscape Ecology Insider!https://welikia.org/boroughs/welcome-to-the-landscape-ecology-insider/
https://welikia.org/boroughs/welcome-to-the-landscape-ecology-insider/#commentsSat, 11 Sep 2010 23:48:06 +0000http://welikia.org/?p=1888 Lappawinsoe thanks you and we thank you for your support of the Welikia Project , beyond Mannahatta! As you know, the Wildlife Conservation Society is taking the “Mannahatta” treatment (see Science) to the rest of the city, by studying, analyzing and then reconstructing the original ecology of all five boroughs of New York City prior to European settlement. The purpose of this historical ecology project is to (1) enrich the experience of living in New York City for all New Yorkers, through appreciation of its ecology; (2) teach people about the local ecology – what it was, what it is today, and what it can be in the future, and (3) to develop the scientific understanding to create a plan to conserve and restore nature and wildlife in the city. In about three years time, we hope that you will be able to explore every block of New York City and see what might have lived there, Native Americans included, before Europeans.

Between now and them, as a supporter, you receive unprecedented access to our research through this Landscape Ecology Insider page! Here the Welikia team will be posting previews of historical and contemporary resources we’ve found – from historical maps to original texts to modern biological surveys, will describe how we figure out the past ecology as will as piece together the modern biodiversity – a process fraught with both interesting problems and solutions, and reveal preliminary results before they are made fully public. We will also post here, from time to time, special invitations to insider events in New York City, including hikes, lectures and readings.

So welcome and enjoy!

]]>https://welikia.org/boroughs/welcome-to-the-landscape-ecology-insider/feed/0Daniel Denton’s Brief Descriptionhttps://welikia.org/boroughs/daniel-dentons-brief-description/
https://welikia.org/boroughs/daniel-dentons-brief-description/#commentsSat, 11 Sep 2010 22:09:46 +0000http://welikia.org/?p=1884An important early account of western Long Island can be found in Daniel Denton’s 1670 account of his stay in New York, which he describes as a “true Relation of a known unknown part of America,” a sentiment which might still be shared by modern New Yorkers which the Landscape Ecology Insider no doubt shares, embroiled as we are in the constant revision and reinvention of New York still.

The full title of Denton’s frothy work has more than a bit of Monty Python style to it:

A

Brief Description of New York:

Formerly called New Netherlands.

With the Places thereunto Adjoyning.

Together with Manner of its Scituation, Fertility of Soyle,

Healthfulness of Climate, and

Commodities thence Produced.

Also

Some Directions and Advice to such as shall go thither:

An Account of what Commodities they shall take with them;

The Profit and Pleasure that may accrue to them thereby.

Likewise

A Brief Relation of the Customs of the Indians there.

We shall have occasion on the Landscape Ecology Insider to quote from Denton’s “brief” description now and again, but if want to jump to the entirety straight away, you can find a 1845 reprint scanned on Google books by following the link below.